(Maggie, 3 days after arriving at the village)(Maggie, her mother, and social worker during intake process)
(From l. to r., Moses, John, Maggie, Kimani, Malaika, Adam
hanging out on our veranda)
(Oh, how charming!! What a lovely sight to greet you in the morning! )Greetings to you all,
We hope this finds you doing well. Our little family at the Village of Hope continues to grow, some of you may already know that two more boys, Brighton and John recently joined us along with Maggie. We now have a total of six children. We are enclosing their pictures with this update. There are another 13 boys and girls who are waiting to come in once the plumbing on the other two cottages are completed and the windows are installed. On Monday of this week, Miriam and Kamau went on yet another screening exercise to identify the 6 boys and one girl who will bring the total number of kids at the children's home to twenty-five.
Our four welders are busy making metal bunk beds to accommodate all these children, we were having problems getting the wooden bunk beds into the children's bedrooms due to the small size of the doors, on two occasions, we had to get the beds in through the windows after first removing all the glass panes. We also think the metal beds are more durable and even cheaper since we are making them ourselves.
On Tuesday November 7th, we interviewed another House Mother, her name is Ms. Rose Chipoya, she is 43yrs old. Rose previously worked at a Kindergarten for 7yrs. She has been involved in her church children's program for many years, she is also a mother of 6 children, her last born is 17yrs. Rose is a musician, she was very active in her church music program, and she can play different kinds of wind instruments such as trumpet, saxophone, and trombone. She was married to a pastor, the marriage ended five years ago after her husband walked away with another woman in his congregation.
We thought that you may want to know some background information that we have available for the children.
Biographical Sketches
Maggie Mpundu- Age 5, speaks Bemba. Maggie is a single orphan in that her father is deceased. Her mother first approached Kimberly after church one day and asked her to please take her child because she was unable to provide for her. Kimberly recognized Maggie from when an outreach was held at Pastor Zulu's church. She had noticed that Maggie seemed to want to be standing close to her at various times throughout the day as activities were taking place. When the event was over, Maggie did not want to leave and resisted the efforts of the woman who had come to take her home.
At first we were hesitant to consider Maggie for admission into the Village because our main focus is double orphans, but then we began to notice that Maggie was in an unstable environment. On one occasion Maggie appeared at church alone and stayed for the whole service. After speaking with her, we learned that she had walked alone from her house, which was a little over a mile away. Then we began hearing reports that Maggie's mother had been arrested for setting her boyfriend's house on fire and Maggie had been taken somewhere else. After her mother was released because it could not be proven that she had committed the crime, Maggie was brought back, but we continued to hear that she was in an unstable situation. We had been praying that the Lord would make His will known to us concerning this little girl because she kept appearing before for us and we began to be concerned for her welfare. A week ago while we where at church she refused to sit with her mother and when it came time to leave, she caused a scene by crying loudly and struggling to break free from her mother so that she could follow us. It was very heartbreaking as a parent to witness this unnatural interaction between a mother and child. We all felt strongly that the Lord wanted Maggie to be in a safe place here at the Village and she was accepted a few days ago. It is interesting to note that on the day that we picked her up to come to the village, the only tears she shed was when her head was clean shaven at the barber shop.
John Jaula- Age 6, speaks Nyanya. John is a double orphan. When John was first identified by Kamau and the social workers, he was living with an aunt. He was not attending school, but herding goats in the heat of the day. The aunt refused to release him to the village at first but when the headmaster of the local school learned of her refusal, he told Kamau that he would speak to her because he himself knew of the desperate situation of the family. Some weeks later, Kamau and the housemothers had been praying for the children that were scheduled to arrive that week and they included John in their prayers. When Kamau returned home, he received a phone call from the social worker saying that the guardian had released John to come to the Village.
Adam N'gamo- age 4 & Moses N'gamo -age 7. Both speak Lenje. Both brothers are double orphans and they were being cared for by their 70 year old grandmother who was also caring for four other children. She was struggling to provide food for them.
Isaac Phiri- age 7, speaks Nyanja and can understand English. Isaac's 77 year old grandmother, who was a former nurse, was caring for him along with six other orphans. She had no income and had great difficulty in providing for him. When Isaac was admitted into the Village, his Grandmother was very relieved and she stated that she could now die in peace knowing that her grandchild will receive good care. Isaac the youngest of the seven orphans in her care.
Brighton Lunda- Age 7, speaks Lenje. Brighton's situation was very desperate, a double orphan his caregiver was his 63 year old grandmother who is a drunkard. She said that she was incapable of providing for him. A few days after he was admitted to the village, his grandmother came to visit him and to complete the admission paperwork. When Brighton saw her come, he was visibly disturbed by her arrival; it was as though he was afraid that she was coming to take him back. Only after she assured him that the village was now his new home, did he seem to relax an continue to play with the other children.
Here are the names of the children who are scheduled to be admitted into the Village, please be praying for them:
Sharon Jaula- age 7 & David Jaula- age 4. These children are siblings who are double orphans. They speak Nyanja and are cousins of John Jaula who is currently residing at the Village of Hope.
Gift Sibanda – age 5, speaks Lenje, Bemba and Nyanja. Gift is a double orphan and is currently residing with his grandmother. We are asking special, focused prayer for this child because we have learned that his grandmother is a traditional “African Doctor” which is the modern term for witch doctor. We are not sure what he has been exposed or dedicated to and we were told that he suffers from headaches and stomaches on a regular basis.
Inonge Shabila, girl age, 5
Precious Moyo, girl age, 7
Joyce Jaira, girl age, 5
Natasha Kaleya, girl age, 6
Dockline Mushota, girl age, 3 & Selita Mushota, girl age, 6
Mary Jendela, girl age, 6
Sharpi Mvula, boy age, 5
Phillip Musonda, boy age, 5
Gertrude Mumbuluma, girl age, 6
Slithering Encounters
This morning, we got quite a scare when some workers brought a huge puff adder which they had tried to kill earlier near to our house. They had broken its neck with a shovel but it was still moving, sticking it tongue out and baring it's fangs in a threatening way. This is now the eighth snake killed since June this year when we moved into the village, another one was killed last week on Monday. But today's was the meanest, thickest by far, Kamau usually gets a kick out of teasing Kimberly about keeping one as a pet due to the obvious aversion she has when it comes to this creepy variety of species, but today's discovery was past being funny. This is because we now have kids running all over the place. The locals even told us that this kind of snake is very dangerous. We burnt it and the smell was so petrifying we had to close the door. Any snake charmers or catchers out there?
